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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413609">What If This Storm Ends?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viari/pseuds/Viari'>Viari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Enter the Foreign &amp; related stories [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5 Things, 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Challenge Response, Chaos Twins, Dark Romance, Darth Ferrus thinks Darth Festus needs to get laid, Darth Festus thinks Darth Ferrus needs a punch in the face, Denial of Feelings, Drama, F/M, Jedi/Sith romance, Lord Space Byron, Love/Hate, One Shot, POV Original Character, Possibly Unrequited Love, Romance, Sequel, Sort Of, Unrequited Love, Vignette, also Allana is the most precious empathetic Jedi princess and I love her, bastard with a crush, feelings are hard, he'd probably write a lot of yearning poetry, if he wasn't busy with all the murder, super evil chaos twins of evil, this boy has some serious psychological damage, what happens when you turn a sensitive introvert into a Sith Lord</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:47:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,369</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28413609</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viari/pseuds/Viari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Darth Festus definitely wasn’t in love with a Jedi princess, and one time she definitely wasn’t in love with him.</p><p>Alternate universe, 43-61 ABY, one-shot, angst, denial of feelings, mostly unrequited love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Allana Solo/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Enter the Foreign &amp; related stories [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988521</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What If This Storm Ends?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written in response to a 5+1 challenge. The second section takes place immediately after <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27987375">Where the Waves Shatter</a>. Same 'verse as <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27230911">The Lands of the Dead</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25843246/chapters/62786074">Enter the Foreign</a>.</p><p>Thanks to Gabri_Jade for her endless support and encouragement as I continue to delve into this weird little ship. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
    <strong>I. Nar Shaddaa, 51 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    He wakes in the dead of night, as he often does, staring up at the low
    ceiling of the hastily rented tenement. His twin brother is across the
    room, sound asleep in his own bed, as usual. Snoring like a congested Hutt
    – again, typical.
</p><p>
    Freedom is still new to him. It reminds him a little of being thirteen,
    standing in the barracks on Korriban for the first time, dried blood from
    his first kill still crusted around his fingernails. A whirl of excitement
    and dread and noise as his brother dragged him over to show off his bunk.
    Not understanding what he was supposed to do next, why he was still so
    scared when his nightmare was supposedly over. This new freedom feels a lot
    like that.
</p><p>
    Rage snakes through him in these quiet moments, as memories fill every dark
corner of his sleep-addled brain, and he finds he can barely breathe.    <em>Traitor</em>, he thinks, clenching his fists against the sheets,
    remembering his master’s face. <em>No good bastard.</em> There are other
    thoughts, too, tumbling around in his head, thoughts he is reluctant to
    give form or voice to. Easier to rage against his old master than to
    examine the truth of him too closely.
</p><p>
    <em>Her</em>
    face flashes through his mind unbidden, and it’s all he can see now, that
    moment he knelt on the ground, waiting to be struck down. Helpless in the
    face of so much power and fury. Her voice, so quiet as she stepped between
    them. She had to know it was in vain, didn’t she? When the Master decided
    to kill someone, they were dead – no exceptions. She couldn’t possibly
    think her pleas would fall on anything other than deaf ears. So why did she
    do it? <em>Why?</em>
</p><p>
    Why can’t he stop thinking about it? Remembering the way she finally looked
    over her shoulder at him, her expression frightened and resolute and sad
    and—
</p><p>
    He drags his fingers through his hair, trying to ignore the sick feeling in
    his stomach, the one he still doesn’t understand, even weeks later. He
    hates it, hates thinking about how he owes his life to her twice over, how
    he’s just a worthless weakling who needed some Jedi princess to save him.
</p><p>
    Most of all, he hates <em>her</em>. He hates the fact that she stayed
    behind while his brother dragged him away. As if she was somehow stronger
    and better than him, able to stand up to the Master when he couldn’t.
    Daughter of legends, of heroes, of everything he will never be.
</p><p>
    Pure.
</p><p>
    Compassionate.
</p><p>
    <em>Merciful.</em>
</p><p>
    He raises a hand to his face, roughly wiping away tears before they can
    fully form. Already knowing he won’t be able to go back to sleep.
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
    <strong>II. Kordros, 54 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    “What do you mean, you <em>lost</em> him?”
</p><p>
    He throws himself into the co-pilot’s seat without answering. His brother
    ignites in the Force like a flare, punching the back of his own seat.
</p><p>
    “That’s great, first you lose the guy, and now you’re gonna drip water all
    over my damn ship?”
</p><p>
    He knows what Ferrus is doing, trying to goad him into reacting, trying to
    pick a fight. He can barely hold that thought in his head, though. Can
    barely spare his twin more than a glance as he stares out the viewport at
    the dark storm clouds gathering just offshore. He was so close. <em>So</em>
    close.
</p><p>
    Behind them, the murderer in chains laughs, an ugly, guttural laugh that
    fills the entire hold. “You two are really hilarious, you know that?”
</p><p>
    Ferrus turns on the man and points right at him. “You shut up, or I’ll kill
    you right now.”
</p><p>
    “I wish you would,” their captive says, sneering. “Anything’s better than
    listening to your whining.”
</p><p>
    Ferrus crosses the hold and grabs the man by the throat, lifting him high
    off the deck, as if he were little more than a rag doll. “Give me one more
    reason,” he says with a growl.
</p><p>
    Festus leans forward to power up the ship. “If you kill him, we won’t get
    paid.”
</p><p>
The bounty drops to the floor as his brother turns toward him. “He    <em>speaks</em>.” Ferrus stomps to the front of the ship and drops into the
    pilot’s seat. “Would you stop that?” he snaps, smacking Festus’s hand away
    from the navicomputer. “You’re going to short-circuit the controls. Go dry
    off or something.”
</p><p>
    Festus looks down at his clothes, completely soaked with seawater and
    covered in sand. He can feel the storm approaching from the west. He
    wonders where she escaped to, if she’s still on-planet, if she’s thinking
    about him the way he can’t stop thinking about her—
</p><p>
    “What’s <em>with</em> you today?” his brother grumbles, using his sleeve to
    wipe water off of the control panel. “You’ve never lost a kill.”
</p><p>
    Festus lets out a long breath. “First time for everything,” he mutters,
    watching fat, dark clouds roll in over the coast, covering the beach in
    swaths of torrential rain. Lightning splits the sky in the distance as
    their ship jerks into the air. “You know, I wouldn’t mind coming back here
    again.”
</p><p>
    “A thousand planets with beaches, and you want to come back to this
    freezing hellhole?” His brother lets out a derisive snort. “You really are
    crazy.”
</p><p>
    He tips his head to the side and studies his twin’s face for a moment.
    “Yeah,” he says quietly. “That’s me.”
</p><p>
    He watches the storm-struck beach and the dark layer of clouds until
    they’re nothing more than dull splashes of color in the corner of the
    rain-freckled viewport.
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
    <strong>III. Reialem, 56 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    The cerulean blade slices through the air, sizzling with pure, deadly
    energy as it misses his chin by only a few centimeters. Too late to block,
    he bends backward as far as he can and readies for her next attack. Her
    saber reverses course, and he meets it with his own; and he wonders how she
    put him on the defensive so quickly.
</p><p>
    As the light from their weapons dances across her face, she flashes a tiny
    smirk, and he thinks: <em>Oh, right. That’s how.</em>
</p><p>
    “As much as I’d love to stick around and get murdered,” she says, slightly
    out of breath, “I have somewhere to be.”
</p><p>
    He laughs as their blades lock against one another. “You think I’m going to
    let you go that easy?”
</p><p>
    He uses his greater height and weight to push her back. She tries to dig
    in, but he’s gaining momentum now, forcing her through the jungle’s dense
    foliage, up a slight incline, only for her back to crash hard against a
    massive, gnarled tree.
</p><p>
    The impact jars them both. The part of him that usually aches to dominate
    and destroy his opponents – the part that revels in their fear as they
    wonder what he’ll do to them next – is strangely silent as he holds her
    against the tree. In its place is something else, something hungry and
    heated rising up in him as he leans into their crossed lightsabers. For a
    few fleeting seconds, he imagines surging forward to kiss her.
</p><p>
    <em>—weak, pathetic, what are you doing, don’t you dare— </em>
</p><p>
    
</p><p>
    <em>—you really are a monster, aren’t you—</em>
</p><p>
    He doesn’t know what to do next.
</p><p>
    Her gray eyes go wide, and in that instant, he sees the young girl he
    fought on Vjun. He remembers his hand tightening around her throat, recalls
    the intensity of his hatred, how he’d wanted to punish her master and every
    Jedi in existence by taking her precious little life. Darth Krayt had
    rescued him from the lands of the dead and given him purpose, filling the
    void at his center, focusing his rage; and by the Force, the young and
    eager Darth Festus was going to repay his master in every possible way,
    starting with the death of Ben Skywalker’s apprentice.
</p><p>
    The memory of that hatred is staggering in its ferocity and in the way it
    stands in such stark contrast to how he feels right now. Because as he
    looks across the blades into her suddenly terrified eyes, he’s not thinking
about how much he hates her or how he needs to kill her. He doesn’t    <em>want</em> her terror. He wants her to flash that little smirk at him
    again. He’d do anything to see it.
</p><p>
    He’s thinking he never wants this to end.
</p><p>
    <em>It’s a game,</em>
    he tells himself. <em>That’s all it is.</em> And if he kills her now, the
    game is over, and where would be the fun in that?
</p><p>
    “Come on, Princess,” he says in a low, mocking hiss, with just a hint of a
    grin. “Is that really all you’ve got?”
</p><p>
    That sparks something in her, and she shoves him hard enough to force him
    back a step, giving her an opening to hit him with a wave of Force energy.
    He staggers down the hill, tripping over a raised tree root and nearly
    falling to his knees. Once again, she has the high ground. As if there were
    any other way it could be.
</p><p>
    “Not even close,” she says, brushing a few strands of copper hair from her
    eyes as she twirls her lightsaber at her side. Then she leaps forward,
    swinging from over her shoulder, aiming at his head. He catches her blade
    against his and parries, driving forward with a series of blows she is only
    barely able to block. The tables turned, he swings hard and looks down at
    her through the union of crimson and cerulean light, utterly transfixed.
</p><p>
    “Now pay attention,” she says, that little smirk finally playing at her
    lips again, “because I’m only going to do this once.”
</p><p>
    Oh, what he wants to do to that soft, smirking mouth. Pay attention, right,
    not like he’s at all distracted by her lips or her voice or every damn
    thing about her.
</p><p>
    He pitches forward suddenly, his lightsaber clashing against nothing but
    air as she deactivates her weapon and ducks to the side. He throws out a
    hand to slow his fall, but she slams both fists and her saber hilt between
    his shoulder blades, knocking him hard to the ground. A blast of energy
    smacks his head against the jungle floor, and he sees stars.
</p><p>
    He hears her take off, her footfalls light as she runs up the hill, away
    from him. Something stings his face, and as he drags himself to his knees,
    he finds the mossy ground dappled with his blood. He swipes a hand across
    his face, identifying the source of the blood – a gash above his left
    eyebrow. A ragged laugh slips past tightly clenched teeth. She could have
    killed him, could have stabbed him right in the back. Why didn’t she? Why
    won’t she kill him?
</p><p>
    He stands in time to see her cresting the hill. She looks back at him
    before she disappears beyond the trees, and in that second, haloed by the
    brilliant sunlight that pierces the canopy, he knows he’s never seen
    anything or anyone more incredible.
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
   <strong>IV. Taris, 58 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    He doesn’t usually leave their dwelling unless there’s a job to do. He’s
    learned that he can’t even pretend to move through normal society like any
    other citizen. Everything about him reads wrong to people, and they are
    always instantly suspicious of him. There’s a part of him that thinks he
    should be a little better at it by now – it’s been over seven years, after
    all.
</p><p>
    His brother doesn’t have a problem blending in. In fact, half the time he
    doesn’t seem much different than any of the other criminals and lowlifes
    they have regular dealings with. Which, Festus supposes, is why he’s being
    practically kicked out of his own home in the middle of the day. As he
    pulls his jacket on and slips his lightsaber inside one of the inner
    pockets – because he’ll be damned if he gets caught anywhere without it –
    he glares over his shoulder at the door leading to his twin’s quarters.
</p><p>
    The muffled but definitely delighted laughter of Ferrus’s female companions
    is enough to make him want to murder someone. Possibly Ferrus himself. He
    grits his teeth, remembering the stupid grin on his brother’s face as he
tried to convince him to stick around.    <em>You honestly need this more than I do,</em> Ferrus had said, glancing
    behind him at the women just visible in his room. One human, one Twi’lek,
    by the looks of them. Ferrus’s grin had turned sly as he nudged Festus hard
    in the shoulder. <em>I’ll take the Twi. I know you like redheads.</em>
</p><p>
    Rage twisting up inside him, clawing up his spine… it had taken everything
    in him not to punch his twin in the face.
</p><p>
    Now he slips out of the apartment and makes his way down to the pedestrian
    level. The weather is just cool enough to justify pulling the hood of his
    jacket up, offering him at least a little concealment in the bright light
    of day. He’s not really sure where he’ll go, but as long as no one bothers
    him, he figures he’ll just walk for a few hours.
</p><p>
    <em>That’s enough time, right?</em>
    He honestly has no idea. Ferrus usually goes somewhere else whenever he
    needs that particular itch scratched.
</p><p>
    He realizes his hands are clenched into tight fists inside his pockets. He
    decides he doesn’t care. The anger feels good, in its own way. It always
    has.
</p><p>
    He’s about to turn a corner – barely avoiding a speeder that veers too
    close to the walkway before pulling back into traffic – when he hears it. A
    voice he’s heard so many times in his sleep, it’s as familiar to him as his
    own.
</p><p>
    “Looks like your contact got cold feet.”
</p><p>
    He closes his eyes for a second, letting the sound of it fill him. His
    mental defenses are up almost all the time now, but he holds fast to them
    nonetheless. Then he edges out from behind the corner of the building,
    looking for the source of that voice.
</p><p>
    She’s standing in profile about ten meters down the walkway, chin tilted up
    to address the man next to her. Her long, copper braid draped over her
    right shoulder, as always. Her expression tired, but determined. He has to
    remind himself to take a breath.
</p><p>
    “What do we do now?” she says.
</p><p>
    Her companion turns so that his face is visible, and Festus can feel his
    hand itching for his lightsaber. Ben Skywalker shakes his head, saying
    something he can’t quite hear. Then Skywalker holds out a hand before
    stepping away, disappearing into the crowd. She watches him go but remains
    in place, standing off to one side of the walkway. Alone.
</p><p>
    He knows he can’t let her see him. If the Jedi know they’re here, they’ll
    have to pick up and leave and start again somewhere else, and his brother
    will be furious.<br/>
<br/>
Festus smiles to himself at that thought, and he steps out onto the
    walkway.
</p><p>
    There are so many beings moving between them, it takes a moment for her to
    notice him. He doesn’t move, just stands there waiting, letting the sea of
    pedestrians part around him. He thinks maybe she’s too lost in thought at
    first, but then her eyes shift up and go very, very wide.
</p><p>
    He’s reminded of the beach on Kordros, a few years ago, where they stared
    at each other like this. Silent, unexpected. Heart in his throat, pounding
    nearly as hard as the waves against the rocks.
</p><p>
    <em>
        —don’t pretend you haven’t thought about her each and every day since
        she saved your miserable life—
    </em>
</p><p>
    She hasn’t moved yet, which is a little surprising. He stares back at her,
    into those gray eyes, and he tries to imagine what it would be like to hear
    her laugh. Then he cocks his head to the side, puts on a smirk, and shrugs.
</p><p>
    That seems to jar her. She snaps her head to the side, searching the crowd,
    and he realizes she’s looking for Skywalker.
</p><p>
    <em>And that’s my cue.</em>
</p><p>
    He darts back around the corner, looking for the nearest escape route.
    Figures he’ll head down to the lower level and make his way back to the
    apartment from there. He doubts Skywalker will want to give chase right
    now, especially without a visual. But they won’t be able to stay here,
    that’s for sure. He smiles at the thought of his brother’s face when he
    tells him the news.
</p><p>
    He descends to one of the filthier lower rungs of the city, pausing every
    so often to check that he’s not being followed. A few blocks from home, he
    finally stops and ducks into a rusting public transit shelter. Pulls his
    hands out of his pockets, only to find them shaking.
</p><p>
    <em>—don’t be weak, what’s wrong with you—</em>
</p><p>
    He feels the spot where his brother shoved him, sees that stupid grin on
his face, hears the laughter from the bedroom— and he thinks if it was    <em>her </em>laughing, he never would have left, not ever. She fills his
    thoughts, fills every part of him, making him sick, and he <em>wants</em>—
</p><p>
    
</p><p>
    <em>—this one thing, can’t I just have this one thing—</em>
</p><p>
    <em>
        —stop it, don’t even think it, who do you think you are, like you’d
        ever deserve her—
    </em>
</p><p>
    
</p><p>
    <em>Get a grip,</em>
    he tells himself. <em>Get a damn grip, already.</em>
</p><p>
    He draws his mental wall up high and blows out a long, steadying breath.
    The shaking subsides. He looks up in the direction of the apartment
    building, able to just make out one corner of the structure from where he
    stands. Plaster on a smile, and play the part. He’s gotten awfully good at
    that over the years. Most of the time he doesn’t know the difference.
</p><p>
    He leaves the shelter, turning toward home, and grins.
</p><p>
    His brother is going to be so mad.
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
    <strong>V. Argeneen, 61 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    Darth Festus lies on his back, staring up at a sky so blue, it doesn’t even
    seem real.
</p><p>
    The rust-colored mountain range he is currently occupying hews slightly
    more orange than the ones he grew up around on Korriban, and he thinks that
    color contrast is what makes the whole landscape look even more surreal.
    Like an illustration from one of the stories he used to read as a kid.
</p><p>
    Huh. He hasn’t thought about those stories in years.
</p><p>
    A breeze flutters through the canyon, whipping up around the ledge he is
    camped on, and he closes his eyes at the feel of the warm air brushing
    across his face. He could just lie here, he thinks. He could just listen to
    the wind and feel the sun on his skin and not have to do anything at all.
</p><p>
    He takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly.
</p><p>
    His fingers grasp the pair of macrobinoculars at his side, and he rolls
    onto his stomach, peering down at the city nestled in the valley below. It
    still feels a little weird to be hunting someone so mundane, someone that
    even the most inexperienced bounty hunter could probably bring in without
    much trouble. Someone who is wanted most definitely <em>alive</em>. He
    feels that slowly-building pressure in his chest, the need for release, the
    need to crush someone so completely that they never rise again. He grits
    his teeth against the feeling and adjusts the settings on the binocs.
</p><p>
    His target is just arriving in the city center, sitting in the back of what
    looks to be an expensive Nubian speeder. Baron Torith Valdos, wanted by the
    Hutts for… well, he honestly doesn’t know. Probably stole from them, or
    insulted one of them, or did something equally stupid. Why isn’t his
    brother the one bringing this fool in? Oh right, because he’s decided to
    play crime boss now, isn’t that a fun game?
</p><p>
    There’s no rush to bring Valdos in right this second. No one down there
    will be able to stop him, and he figures he might as well enjoy his time
    away from Denon. He scans the group assembled near the speeder, a bunch of
    dignitaries and aides. Valdos exits the speeder and greets a few of the men
    and women gathered there.
</p><p>
    Wait a damn minute.
</p><p>
    He lowers the binocs, quarry forgotten as he blinks and wipes dust from his
    eyes. He raises the binocs again, adjusting until he has a clearer view of
    the woman standing to the right of his target.
</p><p>
    <em>Okay,</em>
    he thinks, forcing himself to breathe in and out.
    <em>
        If this isn’t some kind of fate nonsense, I’m going crazier than usual.
    </em>
</p><p>
    Because that’s Allana Djo, Jedi Knight and one-time princess, standing
    there next to his prey, completely unaware of the forces – or maybe even
    the Force itself – conspiring to bring them together yet again. Kordros,
    Ord Mantell, Reialem, Taris, Kurin, and now here, on Argeneen, a
    freakishly-colored dust-ball in the middle of nowhere. And before any of
    it, before Vjun even, before the doctor and the Sith, before he’d been put
    on that shuttle and sent away…
</p><p>
    He shakes his head, forcing those thoughts out of his mind as he returns
    his full attention to the woman he has spent the last ten years chasing
    after.
</p><p>
    He wonders, in a distant sort of way, what he would actually do if he ever
    caught her, if he ever defeated her again. He knows what he <em>should</em>
    do. He’s known that since he was eighteen years old. He used to picture it,
    that moment when he would drive his lightsaber through her chest and burn
    out her heart, always feeling that sick, sick twisting of his stomach as he
    did. But now, every time he tries to imagine killing her, all he can think
    is that he’ll never hear her voice again or look into her gray eyes or feel
    the rush of being so close to her.
</p><p>
    <em>
        —it’s just a game, it’s just a game, but every game ends eventually,
        doesn’t it—
    </em>
</p><p>
    <em>
        —don’t be weak, you idiot, you can’t be weak, as if she could ever love
        you—
    </em>
</p><p>
    He grips the binocs hard, knuckles bone-white, fingers aching. She
    couldn’t. She <em>wouldn’t</em>. Not someone like him. Not ever.
</p><p>
    The doctor whispers to him across time and space, almost kind, almost
    tender:
    <em>
        Don’t try to hide from what you are, what you were always destined to
        be…
    </em>
</p><p>
    <em>What am I?</em>
    he’d asked back then, desperate for truth, for <em>anyone’s</em> truth. And
    what was it his old adversary – his old mentor, captor, patron, opponent,
    teacher… his guide through the lands of the dead – what was it he had said?
</p><p>
    <em>The only one who can answer that question is you.</em>
</p><p>
    There have been many answers to that question over the years, all of them
    falling short of the truth. All of them except one:
</p><p>
    <em>Monster.</em>
</p><p>
    He thinks of the stories he used to read as a kid, the ones where the brave
    knight always slayed the monster in the end.
</p><p>
    Down in that valley is a brave knight. Maybe the bravest he’s ever known.
</p><p>
    <em>All right,</em>
he tells himself as he puts down the binocs and picks up his lightsaber.    <em>Time to go be a monster.</em>
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<hr/><p><br/>
</p><p>
    <strong>I. Jedi enclave, unidentified location, 43 ABY</strong>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>
    The boy kneels down in front of her, holding the toy out for her to take.
    “I’m sorry,” he says, and she can tell he really means it. She doesn’t know
    why he’s sorry. It’s not like he did anything wrong.
</p><p>
    As she reaches out for her most precious possession, he smiles at her. She
    tries hard not to look away, much as she wants to. She’s gotten used to
    people looking down on her or over her or past her. Like she’s not even a
    real person who matters. <em>His</em> daughter, they whisper when they
    think she can’t hear. Isn’t that why those other boys stole her toy in the
    first place? To punish her?
</p><p>
    Her fingers grasp the soft, slightly worn plush of her stuffed tauntaun,
    and she hugs it against her chest, dipping her head to breathe it in, or
    maybe to hide her face. “Thank you,” she whispers, slightly muffled.
</p><p>
    He’s still smiling at her, a little wider now, she thinks. For just a
    moment, she thinks of the stories she’s heard, about what a princess is
    supposed to do when someone comes to her rescue. But she’s not a princess
    anymore, is she? She doesn’t think she ever really wanted to be one anyway.
</p><p>
    “You’re welcome,” he says, tilting his head ever so slightly to one side.
    “I’m Dorian, by the way.”
</p><p>
    She peeks out from behind the plush. “I’m Allana,” she says, so quiet she’s
    not sure he can even hear her. She hugs her toy tighter, unsure if she
    should say something else.
</p><p>
    “I know,” he says gently. “I’ve seen you around.” Finally, he stands, and
    this time his smile is a little sad. “They won’t bother you again. I
    promise.”
</p><p>
    She nods, silent as she watches him turn and walk away. She doesn’t think
    about it until later, why he chose to kneel. It’s not like she’s a toddler
    that he would tower over her. He can’t be more than two or three years
    older than her. She wonders why he did it.
</p><p>
    She sees him a few more times in the days that follow. He mostly sits
    alone, reading on his datapad, but she’s too shy to approach him. Not long
    after, she learns he was transferred to one of the other enclaves, along
    with his brother, and that something had gone wrong along the way. The
    adults are reluctant to say more, but her grandma pulls her into her lap
    when she asks, and she explains what happened.
</p><p>
    She thinks of him often, for a time, wondering where he is, if he’s even
    still alive. The sadness eats at her, and her grandma smooths the hair back
    from her forehead and sings old Alderaani lullabies; and she remembers him
    the way she remembers a dream – hazy, distant, not quite real.
</p><p>
    <em>Dreams pass in time,</em>
    her grandma whispers, and she’s right. Eventually, all she’s left with is
    an ache, like what she feels when she thinks of her mother, her father, her
    grandpa… everyone she’s ever lost. A quiet heaviness in her heart for each
    of her dead.
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>
</p>
  <p>
    <strong>
      <em>Fin</em>
    </strong>
  </p>
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